


Bishop and Rook

by cruellae (tinkabelladk)



Series: Checkmate [2]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Fluff, Gladnis, M/M, Mostly Canon Compliant
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-25
Updated: 2017-01-24
Packaged: 2018-09-19 18:45:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9455582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tinkabelladk/pseuds/cruellae
Summary: *Spoilers!*Outtakes from The King's Knight. This is what Ignis and Gladiolus got up to while Prompto and Noctis were dancing around each other. It will make a little more sense if you read that first, but it's probably not necessary.Each chapter will be a stand alone scene, probably in random order, depending on what I dream up.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This chapter spoils the aftermath of Altissia. Later chapters will spoil the ending. So beware! 
> 
> I always wondered what was up with Gladio after Altissia. Why was he so angry? This is my best guess.

Gladiolus was no stranger to sacrifice. The Amicitia family had been the king’s shield for generations. He would have given his own life in a heartbeat, but when the toll came, the price wasn’t his to pay. He didn’t know how to deal with that.

And when Ignis finally woke, three days after the rite, the first person he asked for was the person who’d demanded the sacrifice, and it was all Gladiolus could do to not snarl at Noctis as he walked past and into the room where Ignis was sitting on the edge of the bed, his face tilted down so his features were in shadow.

It was only after meeting with the all important king—the king with no kingdom and no queen—that Ignis would see Gladiolus.

‘See’ was the wrong fucking word.

#

Prompto was helping him shave, giving subdued encouragement and guiding Ignis’s hand.

“Hey,” Gladiolus said, sitting on the bed because there was nowhere else to sit. “Ignis.”

“One moment,” Ignis said, and he sounded cool and collected as ever as he toweled off his chin and ran a hand over the newly shaven skin. “Thank you, Prompto.”

“Yeah, sure, anytime,” Prompto said, a little too eagerly.

“You’d better go check on Noctis,” Ignis said. “I think he’s taken Luna’s death rather hard.”

“Sure,” Prompto said, brushing his hand over Ignis’s shoulder as he got up. He had an easy physicality, a way of being present with all of them, that would be helpful now that Ignis couldn’t see. Gladiolus envied the way Prompto could just reach over and brush some dust off of Ignis’s shirt front before he left, making a joke and shutting the door firmly behind him so Ignis would hear that he was gone. For Gladio to touch Ignis…that was a different matter entirely. It was opening a door Ignis had firmly closed years ago.

“How is Noctis?” Ignis asked.

“Fine,” Gladiolus grunted, resisting the urge to hit something. “Why do you care so much?”

Even with his eyes hidden behind dark glasses, the shock on Ignis’s face was easy to read. “He’s my king.”

“He’s a kid. He’s an inexperienced kid who just got who knows how many people killed.”

“He is still my king.”

Gladio growled out of sheer frustration, getting up and pacing the narrow room. “He fucked up.”

“I don’t know what he could have done differently.”

Gladio didn’t have a good answer for that, but the anger needled at him anyway, and he couldn’t stop himself from lashing out at Noctis again and again, as they continued their journey by train.

#

After a particularly fierce confrontation, Ignis felt he had no choice but to speak to Gladiolus, pulling him into the sleeping compartment at the back of the train.

“What is the problem?” Ignis asked, standing too close to Gladio in the cramped space between the two beds. “You can’t continue to berate him like this. And I’d thank you not to do it on my behalf.” He hated the way Gladiolus had been acting, that his injury had been used to create tension in their little group.

All the fight went out of Gladiolus, he let his shoulders droop and his head hang forward. “I can’t do it, Iggy,” he murmured. “I didn’t sign up for this.”

“What do you mean?” Ignis asked. Gladiolus couldn’t possibly be resigning…could he? He was the king’s stalwart shield, and if his resolve wasn’t infallible, than whose was?

“I thought I would sacrifice anything for my king,” he said, and his voice came out low and tortured. “But I was wrong.”

“I don’t understand,” Ignis said. Gladio’s breathing was heavy, close to his ear in the confined space, and their proximity kept distracting him from the matter at hand. He was still getting accustomed to a lack of vision, and somehow, not being able to see made everything both more distant and more immediate.

“When I swore an oath to join the Crownsguard, I promised to give my life in service of the king. But I didn’t…” He drew in a sharp, shaky breath. “If I get hurt, if I die, that’s fine. But you—”

“Swore to serve just as you did.”

“It’s not the same,” Gladiolus roared, so loudly Ignis was sure people the next car over could hear him.

“It is the same,” Ignis quietly but firmly reminded him.

“It’s not. And I’ll be damned if I let that punk take chances with your life.”

Ignis stepped back, shocked by the disrespect. It’s not like they had to bow and scrape, but the royal line of Lucis was due some consideration. You didn’t just call the king a ‘punk.’

“He is our King,” Ignis said, his voice very low and cold. “We swore our lives to his service. I’ll thank you to treat your sovereign with some respect.”

He turned to go.

“Iggy.” There was something raw in Gladiouls’s voice, something desperate. Ignis turned back. “You could have died.”

Ignis reached out a hand, his fingers landing on a broad chest and tracing their way upwards until he could gently clasp Gladio’s bulky shoulder.

A large hand engulfed his, and guided it, pressing his palm to a wet, stubbly cheek. “I tried so hard not to love you,” Gladiolus said. “I thought I’d succeeded, but turns out I’m just the same goddamn idiot who let you walk away all those years ago.”

Ignis stepped closer, until he could rest his head against Gladio’s broad chest, the shield’s arms wrapping tightly around him.

“You don’t have to be strong all the time,” Gladiolus murmured. “I’m here for when you’re not. Just like you do for me.”

“Gladio, I—”

Ignis was interrupted by a shocked woman’s voice from outside their sleeping compartment. “Is that an imperial ship?”

He pulled away, reluctantly. “We’d better check it out,” he said.

“Yeah.” Gladiolus’s voice was unusually gruff. Warm lips were pressed to his for a too short moment, and then they heard an explosion from somewhere nearby. Gladiolus took his hand. “Let’s go,” he said.


End file.
